We hear a lot about Long Covid.
Here's an article that says Long Covid is distorting the labor market due to the number of workers who have chronic disease and disability.
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| Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/08/long-covid-is-distorting-the-labor-market-hurting-the-us-economy.html |
Here's another that says Long Covid could be the next public health disaster.
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| Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/why-long-covid-could-be-the-next-public-health-disaster.html |
Here is an article from earlier in the year from the UK that claimed that the Covid vaccines may not protect you from being infected but they would protect against Long Covid.
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| Source: https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/covid-19-vaccination-protects-against-long-covid |
Other studies I have seen suggest that there is little reduction in risk for Long Covid in those who have been vaccinated.
Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins had a guest opinion column in The Wall Street Journal this week in which he argues that Long Covid has been vastly exaggerated He agrees that some cases are legitimate but diagnosing fatigue as Long Covid five weeks after a viral infection is the medicalization of ordinary life.
Long Covid is real. I have reliable patients who describe lingering symptoms after Covid infection. But public-health officials have massively exaggerated long Covid to scare low-risk Americans as our government gives more than $1 billion to a long Covid medical-industrial complex.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that 20% of Covid infections can result in long Covid. But a U.K. study found that only 3% of Covid patients had residual symptoms lasting 12 weeks. What explains the disparity? It’s often normal to experience mild fatigue or weakness for weeks after being sick and inactive and not eating well. Calling these cases long Covid is the medicalization of ordinary life.
As usual with Covid, who are we to believe?
Whatever the facts are it is clear that we hear an awful lot about Long Covid and its effects.
Considering all of this, I recently came across a cohort study published at jamanetwork.com I found to be very interesting.
It studied patients with symptomatic illness who had been given a Covid test.
The study then followed the patients in two groups between those who had tested positive for Covid and those who did not and checked with them after three months to determine how they were doing in their physical, mental and social well-being.
A comparison was then done between those patients who had tested positive for Covid and those who had not.
Did the Covid positive patients exhibit residual symptoms after infection at a higher degree than the Covid negative patients?
The surprising answer was that the Covid positive patients actually reported fewer residual symptoms long term than the Covid negative patients even though both clearly had symptomatic illness to begin with.
39.6% of the Covid positive patients reported residual symptoms after three months.
53.5% of Covid negative patients reported residual symptoms.
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| Credit: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2799116?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email |
It is an interesting finding. It supports the conclusions of Dr. Makary.
It seems to suggest that being sick with any symptomatic virus can have lingering effects.
What might be different with Long Covid?
Is it different because we have given it a name and amplified all of this in people's minds with the amount of attention it has received?
Did we ever talk about "Long Flu" before?
This study suggests that Long Flu might be real as well. However, it was never given a name or became "a thing."
Putting all of this aside, it is true that we have seen substantial increases in the numbers of people with a disability in the United States over the last two years.
This chart from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis database tracks the population of those age 16 and over with a disability over the last two years.
I have placed a blue line at the beginning of 2021 as that is the point it seems we reached an inflection point and disabilities began increasing very rapidly.
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| Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU00074597 |
Is this the result of Covid or Long Covid?
Could it be something else?
You will notice during the first year of Covid during 2020 (red arrow on left) the population of those with a disability was actually going down.
This suggests that Covid was not driving higher disability.
It is possible that Long Covid is a driver of increased disabilities based on what we see beginning in 2021.
However, why were the visible effects delayed so far past the onset of Covid?
Disabilities did not start to spike until over a year after Covid was widely circulating.
Is there anything else that might have contributed to the rise in disabilities beginning in January, 2021?
Could this be a factor?
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| Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends |
It is a question that needs to be answered. However, there are not many willing to even consider the question let alone look for answers.
Another question that needs to be examined is what has caused the higher number of excess deaths that were not Covid related (particularly among those age 15- 45) we have experienced since the beginning of the pandemic?
This is a chart from the CDC's Wonder database that shows excess deaths above a 2019 baseline after Covid deaths are removed.
This analysis was done by Kyle Lamb who is a researcher/data analyst for the state of Florida. I found Lamb to one of the more reliable sources of data on Covid throughout the pandemic.
Each line on the chart represents a month since March, 2020.
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| Source: https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1601283434806026241 |
Why has this occurred?
Is it just a coincidence that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida announced shortly after that data was published by Lamb that he was calling for a grand jury investigation of potential "crimes and wrongdoings" related to the Covid vaccines in Florida?
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| Source:https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3773773-desantis-calls-for-grand-jury-investigation-of-covid-vaccines/ |
I wrote about the concerning number of non-Covid excess deaths in 2020 among those in the age 15-44 age group in a blog post in June, 2021 titled "The Road Not Taken". I questioned what effect Covid policies (lockdowns, school closures etc) might have had on deaths in this age group.
What was causing these excess deaths if it was not Covid?
The most obvious answer is that non-Covid excess deaths in these age groups are lockdown related.
Suicides? Drug abuse? Delayed treatments for cancers and other serious conditions?
For example, Dartmouth College had three suicides among its freshman class this year.
Three! These students were the cream of the crop. Why?
What is the societal cost of the deaths of so many young people during 2020---not due to the virus but our public health response to the virus?
It is clear now that in addition to the economic cost of the lockdowns there was also a huge human cost in populations that were not very vulnerable to the virus
The chart above shows that non-Covid excess deaths not only continued into 2021 but they got even higher.
They have also continued into 2022. The graph above shows that the excess may be declining recently but some of that undoubtedly relates to reporting lags. This will need to be followed closely as time unfolds.
Most of the severe lockdowns and school closures were lifted in 2021. However, non-Covid excess deaths among the young still grew between 2020 and 2021.
We are not talking about slightly elevated death levels. The CDC data is showing increases in the order of 15%-35% over 2019 levels for much of the last two years
Is there anything that might have contributed to the additional non-Covid excess deaths in 2021 and 2022 in the age 15-44 age group besides drug deaths and suicides?
Is it Long Covid?
Is it something else?
Another question is why non-Covid excess deaths in the 55+ age group are lower than the young over the last two years. These generally are up around 10%. That is still a large percentage increase when it comes to death statistics but it is lower than what we are seeing in the 15-45 age groups.
Is that due to increased suicides and drug deaths in the young that were not as prevalent in older age groups?
Note that non-Covid excess deaths still spiked to 15-20% over 2019 levels in most older age groups in mid-2021.
Why?
So many questions.
So few answers.
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